OhayoKD wrote:.
I can’t respond to all of that, but the bottom line is that I think you’re not really appreciating that single-year measures are inherently pretty noisy, such that the line for being the clear best in the league in impact in a given time period isn’t constantly being #1 every year. For reference, NBAShotCharts has single-year RAPM for LeBron from 2009-2010 onwards, and LeBron ranked (in chronological order): 1st, 6th, 14th, 1st, 25th, 6th, 3rd, 3rd, 62nd, 32nd, 5th, 7th, 182nd, 16th. Based on the logic you’re using, those single-year outputs would suggest LeBron was very much not an impact king, even in the pre-Steph years. But of course we know that when you take longer time horizons, he’s at or near the top. The individual years are just pretty noisy (as well as subject to real ebbs and flows in other players’ form year to year). Meanwhile, in the last decade (excluding 2019-2020), Steph has been: 7th, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 17th, 2nd, 37th. Being at the top or close to it as often as Steph has been is what being an “impact king” looks like when you drill down to single years.
And, the fact that Jokic has been incredible the last few years in terms of impact doesn’t really demonstrate much in this discussion IMO. Other players can have their time in the sun in a longer time period that someone else is better overall in. If we were sitting in 2016 and asking who the “impact king” in the last decade was, we’d have said LeBron, even though Steph would’ve been ahead the prior few years in most measures. The same is true of Steph in the last decade, despite Jokic being ahead the last few years. Steph’s impact metrics the last few years haven’t been quite as high as before and Jokic’s impact metrics have been amazing in those years, but the overall picture in the last decade has Steph at the top. And, in any event, the last few years aren’t really my main concern here, since the argument is mostly about what Steph did in the years while LeBron was still in his prime. And in those years (i.e. like 2014-2019), Steph was the clear #1 player overall in impact metrics.